PJ KABOS Recipe: Greek Christmas Cookies made with olive oil—Kourabiedes
Desert—Greek Christmas Cookie—Kourabiedes
Serves: 20 to 30 depending on size
PJ KABOS High-Phenolic Extra Virgin Olive Oil used: PJ KABOS Family Reserve—Medium Taste Intensity Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Are you all set for the Magic of Christmas? You will be after watching our little elf and her elf-friend bake Greek Christmas cookies using olive oil instead of butter!
What are Kourabiedes?
In Greece, and throughout the diaspora, a whispered promise of Christmas unfurls through the delicate aroma of Kourabiedes, a timeless pastry that emerges from the oven.
These traditional Greek Christmas cookies, where for PJ KABOS olive oil elegantly replaces fine butter 🧈 with a flakier, melt-in-your-mouth texture, are nothing short of pure pleasure.
When one steps into a Greek home 🏠 where these confections are being crafted, a fragrant symphony of olive oil, flour, and vanilla suggests that the holiday season is nigh, painting the air with the anticipation of Yuletide merriment.
So easy that a child can make them
Now, if a child 👧 (or an elf 🎅!) is the one magically baking these delightful cookies—as in this festive recipe video—so much the better!
PJ Kabos Olive Oil Recipe with Video: Cooking with High-Phenolic Olive Oil—Kourabiedes
This entire short reel is festive and fun but the end is extra adorable!
Ingredients
For the cookie dough:
1 cup (220 ml) PJ KABOS Family Reserve—Medium Taste Intensity Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 egg 🥚🥚 yolks
1 vanilla bean (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
½ cup powder sugar
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup whole-wheat flour
For the powdery topping:
¼ cup powder sugar, or to taste
Equipment
mixer or a large wooden spoon
sifter
cookie sheet
Preparation
Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Prepare a cookie sheet with bake paper.
To a large bowl add PJ Kabos Extra Virgin Olive Oil and the egg yolks 🥚🥚. Beat together for 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and powder sugar and mix in.
Slowly add the 2 cups of flour, while continuing to mix. For the last bit put the mixer (or spoon) away and mix the dough with your hands while slowly adding the remaining flour. (One of the advantages to using olive oil rather than butter 🧈 is that the dough doesn’t stick to your fingers!) The dough’s texture has to be dry enough to be handled but moist enough to be able to form cookies without them falling apart (add a bit more or less flour as needed).
Patting the dough between your two palms, form round 1½ inch in diameter cookies, about ½ inch width, and place on the cookie sheet. The uncooked cookies can be placed close together, but not touching, as they do not expand.
Bake at 200°C (400°F) for approximately 14 minutes or until the cookies lightly crack on top.
While the cookies are baking, sift a thin layer of powder sugar upon a flat holiday platter to receive the hot cookies.
Remove the cookies from the oven and using a spatula place the oven-hot and very delicate cookies on the prepared platter. Don’t leave the cookies on the cookie sheet as their bottoms will burn. While they are still warm, sift a layer of sugar on top.
Serve on a the platter with the Kourabiedes stacked—a high mountain of snowy looking scrumptiousness—or place individual cookies in holiday paper cupcake holders and serve—the 1½ inches in diameter size fits nicely in most paper cupcake cups. These cookies get better as they sit, so they make great gifts!
Note: There are a multitude of delicious recipes to be found for Kourabiedes—most made with butter, white flour, nuts, raisins and a multitude of other ingredients—but this healthy PJ KABOS EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL alternative has found a place in PJ KABOS’ Christmas tradition. We also top the cookies with less sugar than is traditional. We still get the taste and feeling of the season but with a bit less empty calories.
Kali Orexi! – Good Appetite!
We hope you enjoyed our young sweet-toothed 🍭🍬 thespian as she crafted the perfect kourabiedes for her family’s joy, yours and ours!
PJ KABOS: A family owned olive oil company you can trust.
Please enjoy having a look around our websites, pjkabos.com and oliveoil.com, as well as our Amazon Store for more about our many high-phenolic olive oils, recipes, etc. And follow along with us on Instagram for pretty photos concerning olive oil production, our groves in Greece, family history and more.